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THREAD: Thought I’d throw together a quick Q&A concerning the US election for anyone in the UK who’s anxious about the next few days, but doesn’t want to read 50+ articles to understand what might happen and when (1)
“Should I stay up to watch it?"Probably not. Changes to voting because of the pandemic mean many states can’t count all their votes on the night. Even by 5am UK time there’s likely to be nearly 200 electoral college votes outstanding. (2)
If you really want to stay up, then wait for Florida and North Carolina to come in at about 1am. They’re both swing states, and they count mail and early ballots in advance, so should have results quickly after polls close at midnight. (3)
How those two go will also give us a rough idea of how the race is going. If Biden wins both, that could (and I stress ‘could’ here) indicate a decisive win. If Trump wins both, we’re likely to be in for the long haul. (4)
“But we’ll have a pretty good idea of how things are going right?”Not exactly. Mail votes typically tend to skew Democratic, so when they’re counted in the process will affect how things look, and whether mail or election day votes are counted first varies state-to-state. (5)
Let’s take Pennsylvania. They count election day votes first, meaning that Trump might initially appear to have a pretty big lead in the state. Once the voting moves to mail ballots, this lead may shrink or Biden may pull ahead (6)
In short: hold your horses and don’t make any assumptions until all votes are counted and a state is officially ‘called’ for a candidate by two or more credible news outlets (7)
“So what states should I be watching?”Pennsylvania - the most likely state to push either candidate over 270
Florida - a state with lots of votes that tends to be quite unpredictable
Wisconsin - an indicator of if the ‘rust belt’ states that Trump won have swung back (8)
Georgia & North Carolina - wins here could indicate a strong Biden lead
Texas - an unusual one, but Texas appears to have shifted leftwards over the last decade, and a victory here for Democrats would spell a decisive win (9)
Texas - an unusual one, but Texas appears to have shifted leftwards over the last decade, and a victory here for Democrats would spell a decisive win (9)
“If it takes too long to count, will the courts decide who wins?”This is a bit of a misnomer: the courts won’t ever ‘choose’ a winner. Instead, any legal challenge will revolve around the validity of ballots that arrive after election day, and if they should be counted (10)
Any scenario in which several hundred thousand ballots are thrown out nationally could have serious, and damaging, consequences. But there’s no need to immediately worry (11)
Why? Because the importance of these late-arriving ballots only becomes significant if the race is really tight (we’re talking >1% in some of these swing states). That’s possible, but overall it's quite slim odds (12)
Even then, both Republicans and Democrats are voting by mail in large numbers this year, and there’s no guarantee that the specific batch of votes that arrive after election day will skew in any one way (it’s a small subset of mail ballots overall) (13)
This all assumes these (likely spurious) legal challenges are even taken up by the courts. In short, this might become an issue, but it’s a low-chance scenario rather than the main factor that the election hinges on. So don’t stress just yet. (14)
“But what if a candidate declares victory anyway?”It shouldn’t matter. Candidates don’t control when and who the race is called for. But their words can impact the perception amongst the public. Here it’s incumbent upon publications to be careful with framing (15)
Most outlets will be prepared for this sort of thing, but even if you see headlines such as ‘Trump declares victory’ tweeted out by national publications, don’t take it at face value (16)
If you’re unsure, always seek out trusted news sources whose job it is to monitor the election results and make calls (such as the Associated Press). They’ll give you accurate information. Twitter’s also looking to flag posts that make such claims, which should also help (17)
